nterfere. Just then I heard my mother exclaim:

"Who's that? I saw someone at the window. It is impossible; yet--Oh!
Mr Gillooly, you are very kind, you are very generous, but I cannot, I
cannot marry you. After what I have just now seen, it is impossible!"

"It's on my knees, then, I implore you, widow Burthen!" exclaimed Mr
Gillooly. "Oh! Say, would you render me a desperate man and send me
forth to join the Ribbonmen, or Green Boys, or other rebels against King
George? It's afther killing me ye'll be by your cruelty; and it's more
than Jim Gillooly can stand, or has stood in his life, and so by the
powers, Mistress Gillooly, you shall be, in spite of your prothestations
and assartions, and--"

I now thought it high time to interfere, and rushing into the room,
presented myself to the astonished gaze of Mr Gillooly, who was on the
point of rising from his knees, with anger depicted on his countenance,
and a gesture sufficient to alarm even a less timid person than my
mother. She was staring with eyes open and lips apart towards the
window which looked into the garden. The light from the lamp on the
table fell on the face and figure of a man whom I at once recognised as
my fellow-traveller from Portsmouth.

"Who are you?" exclaimed Mr Gillooly, as he saw me advancing. "That
lady's son," I answered.

"Then out upon you for an impostor. That lady can have no big spalpeen
of a son like you!" exclaimed Mr Gillooly, rushing towards me with
uplifted fist. I could easily have escaped him by flight, but that I
disdained to do, though his blow was likely to be one capable of felling
me to the ground. My mother uttered a scream. At that instant the
window was flung open, and in sprang the stranger. The scream arrested
my assailant. He turned his head and discovered the stranger, a man of
powerful frame, rushing towards him.

"Murther! murther! I'm betrayed!" shouted Mr Gillooly. "Oh! Widow,
it's all your doing, and you have led me into an ambush! Murther!
Murther!" and without stopping to pick up his hat or whip he rushed from
the door and out through the garden and along the lane, so I concluded,
as I heard his heavy footsteps growing less and less distinct as he
gained a distance from the cottage.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

I left my mother, at the end of the last chapter, standing in the middle
of the back parlour of Mr Schank's cottage, her Irish admirer, Mr
Gillooly, scampering up the lane as fa